Europe Pulls Ahead of U.S. in Physics - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/id/157514 <comment><USER2> Should be retitled "Europe Pulls Way Ahead of U.S. in Expenditures on Particle Physics". Or "The Albatross is Passed to Europe".

I wish Europe all possible success in nailing down the thirteenth significant digit of the electron's Lande g-factor. May string theorists ("B Ship") flock to Europe, abandoning the U.S. in droves, so that those few remaining physicists can get some useful work done with their ever-dwindling government grants.

String-theory humour at [http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/01/06/string-wars-hit- the-msm...](http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/01/06/string-wars-hit-the-msm/)

</comment><comment> william-newman I am not as sure as giardini that the money is ill-spent --- poking around in a new regime is an interesting gamble, not necessarily an albatross. But the article does seem unusually asinine. "Leadership in the branch of science that delivered just about every major technology of the past hundred years?" Physics, broadly defined, has delivered major technologies, yes. (Just about every major technology! Don't be distracted by minor technologies like antibiotics, restriction enzymes, pesticides, fertilizers, plastics, etc.) But once you define physics so broadly that it includes transistors and lasers and satellites, the US is still doing fairly well under that definition. Massive spending in the subfield of high-energy physics doesn't give you leadership in the entire broad field of physics, and there's no particular reason to expect major technologies will come primarily from from the high energy subfield in the future. Granting for the sake of argument the silly apparent assumption that outspending is outdoing, CERN still doesn't deliver leadership in subfields like condensed matter physics that may still have a few technologies left in them.</comment>


A Wrist-Worn Answer to Sexual Attack? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2013/01/25/a-wrist-worn-answer-to-sexual-attack/ <comment><USER2> For those advocating arms (pepper spray, taser, gun, etc.) as a solution, please get some basic facts straight.

* Most people who are sexually assaulted know their attacker and are not attacked randomly on the street. This makes self defense scenarios unrealistic, as there is already some level of trust between an attacker and the survivor

* Most sexual assaults will go without arrests and prosecution. There have already been cases where women have been arrested and sent to jail for self defense (CeCe Mcdonald's case comes to mind), including the Marissa Alexander case where someone fired a warning shot at their abuser and was sent to jail: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Corey#Marissa_Alexander_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Corey#Marissa_Alexander_case)

* Sexual assault and rape aren't just about incidents, it is about a culture that supports rapists and demonizes survivors and dismantling that culture is the best way to defeat sexual assault

<comment><USER3> Statistics don't comfort the victims that could have done something but were restricted from doing so, usually by people who already live safe lives and want them to be safer.

And your second example basically says 'we will prevent you from defending yourself, so just take it and hope the system saves you'.

And if you think this culture 'supports rapists and demonizes survivors', you are in need of getting your facts straight.

EDIT:

I'm beginning to take this whole thing a bit personal. I learned a long time ago to call it quits when that starts to happen on the internet, so I'm out.

<comment><USER4> I re-read all of the comments on here and didn't feel like ANYONE said anything about victims being 'restricted' from defending themselves.

People on here were stating that the woman should get a gun, or get pepper spray, or get a taser. Telling women they need to defend themselves in a certain way and it's on them to get a gun and shoot an attacker is what I and a few others were upset about.

<comment><USER5> Would you rather tell women they are helpless and that there is nothing they can do but submit to the mercy of men?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you would please let me to vent:

        That sir is just fucking hogwash ! how the fuck is
        that going to fucking matter when the fucking police
        does'nt even take the fucking call.

Thanks folks, and I normally dont speak like this. I have been following the incident closely

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Delhi_gang_rape_case>

and I had to get that out of my system.

For those who have not been following this particular incident, as a measure of immediate damage control the govt had recently (quite grandiosely) announced a new number: 181. This was a "special" "fast track" number explicitly set up for responding to threats of immediate and sexual nature.

Guess what, [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Auto-driver- th...](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Auto-driver-threatens- TOI-reporter-with-worst-violence/articleshow/17906753.cms)

The police, most of them are just incapable of conceiving the notion that they have a duty to respond (helpfully that is) when a woman is in danger. Forget responding to immediate threats, they will point blank refuse to even officially register the assault.

Police officers who have been formally accused of molestation, have routinely got promoted to the top, suffered no consequence at all, won patronage from the highest elected officials of the state. This is almost the standard script, unless the whole country erupts in outrage. Sadly the latter doesnt happen very often.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPS_Rathore>

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KPS_Gill#1996_conviction_for_se...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KPS_Gill#1996_conviction_for_sexual_harassment)

</comment><comment><USER7> >"I don't think this will make any difference in controlling rape cases," says Sehba Farooqui, a woman's rights activist in Delhi.

I agree. I don't think someone desperate enough to rape will care if their victim has a wristwatch that can sms instantly. A good amount of potential rapists aren't even going to know about them, even if the government advertises it. A large portion of those who know either won't care, or will rip the watch off the woman.

What would actually help stop a rape is some pepper spray. I don't know the legality of that in India, but I have to say a lot of places in the US make it way too difficult to acquire this very basic and effective self defense item.

<comment><USER2> > What would actually help stop a rape is some pepper spray. I don't know the > legality of that in India, but I have to say a lot of places in the US make > it way too difficult to acquire this very basic and effective self defense > item.

Self defense gear isn't a great systemic solution to sexual assault and rape, esp. when it occurs with great frequency and police do not take such cases seriously. Even in the US most sexual assault cases will never see an arrest or prosecution and most people are assaulted by someone they know, not by a random stranger on the street.

<comment><USER7> >most people are assaulted by someone they know, not by a random stranger on the street.

Absolutely true

> Self defense gear isn't a great systemic solution to sexual assault and rape

Absolutely true, they are not a systemic solution. They are an _individual_ 's solution who chooses to take responsibility for his or her own safety.

A good systemic solution might be to legalize and subsidize brothels?

<comment><USER2> Stopping sexual assault isn't just an individual's problem, it is a problem for all of society. Why should we live in a culture where 1 in 5 women will experience sexual assault in their lifetime? The kind of systemic problems we face can't be solved by an individual buying a self defense item. We need to focus on defeating a rape culture: <http://www.shakesville.com/2009/10/rape- culture-101.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Basically, the Indian govt. is trying to show that its "doing something" to cool down the public temper after the recent rape incident. Mr.Sibal's last comment is enlightening:

 _> Still, the effort may be of some value. Mr. Sibal noted that, with the same technology, parents would be able to keep tabs on their children. _

What happens is: the agency that developed this device has to justify their funding. So they come up with these bullshit ideas.

</comment><comment><USER9> Wouldn't it be more effective if coupled with some distinctive and excruciatingly-loud alarm, as a means of drawing attention to the scene / getting the attacker to flee before doing anything?

</comment><comment><USER4> A gun? Pepper Spray? You have no idea how the rapist will react to that.

And someone shouldn't have to have the burden of ending another human's life just to not be attacked.

<comment><USER3> What is with this absurd first world notion that nobody should ever have anything bad ever happen to them in their life? Self-defense has been part of being alive since the dawn of humanity - living in a civilized (to various degrees) area doesn't negate that. You are either prepared to do what needs to be done to protect yourself, or you rely on passive measures (living in a nice area, avoiding dangerous situations, etc.) and hope you don't become a victim.

<comment><USER10> It's a first world notion because that's part of being a first world country. We invest in infrastructure that provides protection. Self-defense has shifted to the much more efficient system where by individuals don't walk around armed because we pay into a system of government that provides both police forces and military defense.

The absurd idea that we all each take self defense into our own hands is just ridiculous, just as you don't build your own water supply, or generate your own electricity, or train to be a doctor just in case you get sick.

I can't imagine a more dangerous society where we all take self-defense into our own hands. It wouldn't be the first world if we did that. Let's not start spouting the gun toting nonsense here, the audience on hn is too smart to buy that.

<comment><USER11> Police are not there to protect you. Their job is to bring perpetrators to justice. If they are nearby, they may or may not attempt to stop a crime in progress, but they are not required to do so, and that does nothing to stop personal assaults that _might_ occur. In the best case, they are purely reactionary, not preventative. In the worst case they are useless.

The military is not there to protect you either. Their job is to enforce national policy abroad, put down rebellions and repel invasions.

I agree that police and the military make us safer overall, on average. But they do not protect you personally. You can either pay a private security firm to defend you if you are rich, or you can defend yourself. There literally are no other choices.

<comment><USER12> In suburban and rural areas where they only show up in response to phone calls, I agree as far as police being reactive. But in urban areas police serve a preventative and direct-intervention role, which is one of the classic functions of "walking the beat". They're physically present at major squares and landmarks, and intermittently present through much of the rest of the city. I pass police officers pretty regularly when I walk to and from work, and I would guess most of the time (barring when I'm in a more remote area), I could get a quite timely response if I yelled for help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So, basically they have come up with a novel way to track their women.

Might be a bit of a doubled edged sword.

</comment><comment><USER14> The smoking barrel of a 9mm is far more effective, if legal to get a CCL in your state.

<comment><USER15> Guns: They Make You Invincible

<comment><USER3> Guns: Provably better than snark at preventing and stopping rape.

<comment><USER15> Snark: Not an unreasonable response to predictable [1], pointless chest- thumping.

A reasonable discussion of rape defense / deterrents or even gun ownership would be fine. A quip that romanticizes "the smoking barrel of a 9mm" like it's just that simple is pure bullshit.

1: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4948542>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> indian government should pass a law on allowing tazers</comment>


OsCommerce: A Lesson in Unmaintainable Code? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.james-carr.org/2008/11/30/oscommerce-a-lesson-in-unmaintainable-code/

<comment><USER2> I used OSCommerce for one project. Never again.

Open Source doesn't mean best code. Open Source projects are mostly the fiefdoms of the founders of a project. If you get a good founder you get a good project. Good doesn't have to mean good at code, a good leader can find good coders.

Sometimes, though, Open Source means survival of the fittest. This project is not the easiest to use or maintain. That causes people to go elsewhere. Well the value leaves, so does people's interest. Open Source isn't a corporation, after all, no-one is paying anyone to do dumb stuff all day.

</comment><comment><USER3> I worked on OSC for almost a year and a half. Thank goodness for layoffs.</comment>


ArchiveBox: The open-source self-hosted web archive - <AUTHOR> https://archivebox.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> ArchiveBox takes a list of website URLs you want to archive, and creates a local, static, browsable HTML clone of the content from those websites (it saves HTML, JS, media files, PDFs, images and more).

You can use it to preserve access to websites you care about by storing them locally offline. ArchiveBox imports lists of URLs, renders the pages in a headless, autheticated, user-scriptable browser, and then archives the content in multiple redundant common formats (HTML, PDF, PNG, WARC) that will last long after the originals disappear off the internet. It automatically extracts assets and media from pages and saves them in easily-accessible folders, with out-of-the-box support for extracting git repositories, audio, video, subtitles, images, PDFs, and more.

How does it work?

      echo 'http://example.com' | ./archive

Documentation: [https://github.com/pirate/ArchiveBox/wiki](https://github.com/pirate/ArchiveBox/wiki)

Github: [https://github.com/pirate/ArchiveBox](https://github.com/pirate/ArchiveBox)

Demo: [https://archive.sweeting.me/](https://archive.sweeting.me/)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for posting it ;)

It's been on HN a few times before recently, which is probably why it didn't get tons of attention, you can see the other discussions here:

[https://github.com/pirate/ArchiveBox/wiki/Web-Archiving- Comm...](https://github.com/pirate/ArchiveBox/wiki/Web-Archiving- Community#archivebox-discussions-in-news--social-media)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Hackajob.co – Talent Matchmaking and Get Hired by Hacking - <AUTHOR> http://www.hackajob.co/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Guys,

I am a final year student at King's College London and are working with two other students on hackajob. We all have experience working within the recruitment sector and decided to work on hackajob to try and solve a few fundamental problems with the current hiring process.

We launched our first beta this week and are still in our very early stages. There are still some main features missing but we would love to hear your feedback, both positive and negative. We are trying to disrupt the recruitment market by using a matchmaking algorithm to find specific roles for you. After you have seen your relevant roles, you can then hack each job. To hack a job means to complete a short hack that is relevant to what you will be doing on a day-to-day basis. We are very passionate about this relevance as it is a great opportunity for developers and engineers to find out more specifics about the roles as opposed to standard job ads.

We have had over 1,500 developers and engineers sign up so far and have some very innovative companies willing to try us out. Please get in touch with any feedback you have.

Thanks,

Mark

</comment><comment><USER2> You should allow people to try it before actually registering for the service. Your idea is different but I think that ppl will want to see the coolness and not the reg screen first.

If you take me through some cool experience I will be more inclined to actually give you my info details.</comment>


Semi-hosting on ARM with Rust - <AUTHOR> http://embed.rs/articles/2016/semi-hosting-rust/ <comment><USER2> Ah, semihosting; a bit unloved but very useful in some circumstances. Emulators like QEMU also support this interface, which makes it handy for random debug if you're using them as your test/development environment. The Linux kernel has a configuration option to use semihosting for its console output too.

PS: the article is not quite correct about when to use which trap instruction. Cortex-M profile CPUs should use BKPT; all other 32-bit code should use SVC (with an immediate value varying depending on whether the instruction is Thumb or ARM). 64-bit code uses a HLT insn. If you care at that level of detail you'll be looking at the documentation for the ABI anyway though...

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll admit, I wasn't as accurate as I should have been. I've corrected the part, but left out the long treatise about 2 and 4 byte instructions. Hopefully no one will miss it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Semihosting does more than just emulate the standard I/O streams. It also emulates the filesystem. I've used this feature to get gcov-based coverage analysis out of an embedded target. You see, gcov normally expects to be able to write its statistics out to files which are named after the object files. Of course, those don't exist on a cross target. But with semihosting, you can fake it well enough to work.

This also works for getting rich unit testing frameworks to work, too. Not only do they expect the standard streams to be available, you can also store a bunch of data-parameterized test cases for the unit under test in a file.

</comment><comment><USER4> > _println!-style (or printf-style for more C-affine readers) debugging can be > immensely useful, a quick-fix that can save a lot of time that would > otherwise be spent setting breakpoints or single-stepping through a > program._

Funny, the very reason I use a debugger is that it provides a faster turnaround than modifying the code, compiling, flashing, and hoping I printed the right thing...

<comment><USER5> For me, the main advantage of printf debugging is that it gives a lot of output at once. With a debugger, you have to stop at each breakpoint, print something, and go on. In case the breakpoint is in a hot path, this takes forever. With printf I can get a nice text file to skim through.

This doesn't mean I use printf debugging often, just that it makes sense in some cases and I use it then :)

<comment><USER6> With gdb, at least, you can set up breakpoints like this:

      break file.c:200
      commands
      silent
      printf "x is %d\n",x
      cont
      end

(NB: _silent_ prevents gdb from announcing that it's stopping at the breakpoint, reducing the output noise.)

Now with gdb running the program, every time we hit that line we can get this output. With logging ( _set logging file <filename>_, _set logging on_ ) you can get the output from the run's execution stored to a file.

Conditionals are also possible, so we only print out the results of every 10th iteration through a loop, for instance.

      br file.c:200 if (i % 10) == 9
      commands
      silent
      printf "Iteration: %d, X: %x\n",i,x
      end

(NB: Not at a computer with gdb, apologies if I miswrote something in the examples.)

<comment><USER7> Over JTAG, you're looking at ~200ms for each break which makes it untenable for a lot of embedded use-cases.

<comment><USER6> That's fair, I'm not using that for my work, however. Once you start getting into different extremes you have to choose the appropriate tool.

EDIT: We also have a system where we were running on embedded linux, but due to constraints simply couldn't get gdb involved. printf-style, implemented by way of a logging function where we could specify logging levels, was the effective solution for us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Please consider using a thicker font. This one is not very readable on my device (Windows 10 + Chrome + 17" 100PPI display). I can read it, but it's not a pleasant experience. [edited]

<comment><USER9> That font is really thin and weird looking here on OSX too. I can read it, just not sure I want to.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is it also unreadable at [https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Lato](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Lato) ? (Try "Thin" at 18 px size)?

<comment><USER10> I'm not parent, but experiencing the same problem. Yes, it's also very thin at the google font site, on 18 px Thin. Here is a screenshot: [http://i.imgur.com/bUe7gNs.png](http://i.imgur.com/bUe7gNs.png) The arrow points to the "Thin" line.

Windows 10, Firefox 49.0.1

FWIW, I think it's a pretty common problem with many web fonts on certain platforms (windows?). I see it all the time.

Also, thanks for the post!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11>
        bkpt_n = int(raw, 16 if raw.startswith('0x') else 10)

Tip: you can accomplish something similar with 'int(raw, 0)'.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a neat feature I'll remember. Fixed as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Haven't read the article yet, but the coauthor Philipp Oppermann has a really enjoyable guide I've been following on building an OS in Rust: [http://os.phil-opp.com/](http://os.phil-opp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER13> > The "volatile" option indicates that the code has side-effects and should > not be by removed by optimizations.

I think volatile also means don't change the order with respect to other volatile operations.</comment>


You Owe it to Yourself to be Old-School - <AUTHOR> http://www.codelord.net/2011/02/22/you-owe-it-to-yourself-to-be-old-school/ <comment><USER2> I think a more relevant portion of what Joel what talking about is the 'full stack'/'ductape' programmer. The number of times I've seen people optimizing their for loops instead of their DB queries or their caching mechanisms in a web app is simply astounding. Few people realize that there is far more 'slow' code in the parts they didn't write than the parts they did write.

Think about it, in the 'full stack' of browser -> client -> interweb -> web server -> app server -> db server the little bit of code that you wrote is minuscule compared to what you didn't write. Tune up your TCP stack, tune your webserver, add cache headers, add indexes, etc. Most apps can drastically increase their performance with out even changing a single line of code. And when you're tuning up your code, look for single lines of code to change.

Definite protip in there on debugging with wireshark.

We had a client once that we could only login to their IMAP server but not download mail. A little bit of digging with wireshark and we figured out that he had some old POS router that couldn't handle window scaling. Solution? Turn off window scaling on one of the servers.

<comment><USER3> Again, the assumption that everybody is a web programmer. No wonder people approach the command line with obsequious awe!

<comment><USER4> For the non-web (and sometimes even for the web) programmer, strace can be a real life saver.

An application complains about not being able to find a file, but doesn't report where it looked for it? strace can tell.

Do you want to know why a system call failed, and the app is too crappy to report the error? strace to the rescue!

Of course, if you're lucky you might even have access to dtrace...

<comment><USER2> Yes most definitely, strace / truss have been absolute life savers. And if you are looking for something similar on Windows Process Monitor is excellent. You can also do a lot of DTrace style stuff with WMI and VBScript.

<comment><USER5> The Windows equivalents would be the Sysinternal tools, I guess (Filemon, Procmon, etc..).

<http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The House example is horrible. In the show rarely does house diagnose an illness thorough intellectual debugging. In most episodes House sits around and insults his team while they run tests and about 5 minutes from the end he out of nowhere has an epiphany (while talking to Wilson most of the time) which often has little to do with what tests the team ran and he solves the case.

<comment><USER7> OK, maybe in Season 7, but in Season 1?

<comment><USER3> Yes, absolutely.

If you like House (for the medical mystery aspect rather than the snark), you may also like Berton Roueche's writing. _The Medical Detectives_ is a pretty good collection.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A good article, but intimidating, in a way. And I see this quite a bit in terms of budding programmer advice. It boils down to "you need to read this, and then read that, and then read this," and then the comments section will have even more suggestions for reading.

As I get older, and have kids, I find my ability to sit down and read all of this, and somehow retain it, decreasing. I've recently decided to "get back into" coding (won't go into the history as it isn't tangential to the discussion). I've been having some fun with very, very tiny beginner level programs in Ruby. When I build a list of jobs I would want with Ruby involvement, I find I also need to brush up on my Javascript and learn JQuery. I need to get a full understanding of Git/Github. I should also learn Rails and Sinatra, VIM, and get reacquainted with CSS.

On top of that, it really does seem that C is a requirement to really understand what is happening in Ruby. It seems a lot of things that _why_ wrote for Ruby, he wrote in C.

Then there is all the additional readings, such as in this article, and comments section. All of which seem incredibly legit, but leave me feeling like I will never actually find the time to write code due to all the reading I don't have time to do.

Is there an order of importance with all of this?

<comment><USER9> This article emphasises the important of building your baseline knowledge on the aspects that haven't changed since the dark ages (and probably aren't likely to for a while). As opposed to learning the flavor of the month web framework that might be yesterday's news a week from now.

Learning about C and how to use a decent debugger/tracing tool will help you track down exactly where those unhelpful errors are being generated. Learning how to listen in on network traffic will help you find out why the foo you sent is arriving as a bar (or not arriving at all). Learning to use the shell opens up a lot of quick reusable operations and automation possibilities.

The books he listed are old, but certainly valuable. I don't think they're going to suddenly go out of date.

On the other hand, how much more reading will you do when you have to learn a new high level language every month to keep up with the latest trend?

However, I wouldn't let this get in the way of doing what you want to do, which is writing code, I guess. Learn bits and pieces as you need them and I think you will see the benefit. Don't let them weigh you down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The other side of the coin: I've seen frequent indications (even on HN) that there a hordes of programmers out there that know about almost nothing outside of their web app server, HTTP, and their database of choice. This isn't to say such specialists aren't valuable. Specialists are valuable, but if I see a medical specialist, I want them to have a good grounding in general medical knowledge. Likewise, I would prefer all of my computer colleagues to have basic general knowledge as well. Sometimes such knowledge can avert a disaster.

<comment><USER11> What do you consider general knowledge?

<comment><USER10> A better way to say it would be background knowledge.

Some idea of:

        - How computer hardware is put together (from the NAND gate up)
        - How computer memory is organized/optimized
          (and how the abstractions involved can break down)
        - How compilers/interpreters/computer languages work
        - How a handful of the most commonly used algorithms work
          (and the implications of their time/space complexity)
        - How networks are organized and implemented
        - What operating systems do, and how that relates to hardware
        - Basic security, how exploits work

The thing I see, is a lot of people learn something about the above, but only in the very narrow confines of their particular web development stack. I suspect they're just reciting a set of best practices by rote without understanding principles. They're completely unable to _generalize_ the knowledge, to the point where they say patently incorrect things in comments, even sometimes here on HN. If people can't generalize in a basic way about computer systems, how do they properly think about things like security?

It's like my sister, who is a choreographer and has an exquisite understanding of physics and geometry -- as it applies to dancers. Yet, as far as I can tell, she's completely unable to generalize this to driving and furniture, though she would benefit greatly if she could overcome this limitation. For one thing, when she's driving the family around in a rented car in Italy, she wouldn't end up straddling the center line _every time_ we go around a blind curve. For another thing, her DIY kitchen table made from salvaged parts wouldn't have 3 inches of shear wobble, and her custom desk made from IKEA parts wouldn't have a huge sag in its center. I know she understands the physical ideas behind static mechanics and diagonal bracing applied to dance. I know she has a knack for spatial geometry, because she can have a half dozen dancers move around between each other, keep them from colliding, get everyone where they need to go for the next move, and make the whole thing look beautiful.

I'm also reminded of that Richard Feynman story about teaching physics in Brazil.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Yorkshireman #1: "Bah, C programmers. They don't know how good they have it!"

Yorkshireman #2: "When I were t'lad, we'd have to use assembler by hand!"

Yorkshireman #1: "Assembler? Luxury! We never had an assembler. We had to poke the data in by hand!"

Yorkshireman #3: "Poke! Oh what I wouldn't have given for poke! We used to live int' shoebox int' middle of road, and we'd bootstrap the OS using toggle switches on't front of case."

Yorkshireman #4: "Oooh toggles! What I wouldn't have given for toggles. We used to live int' hole int' ground, and all we had to go on were scraps of hard stale bread, on which we'd punch holes and use as hollerith cards!"

Yorkshireman #2: "Holes? Holes? Bliss, oh what I wouldn't have done for holes!"

*shamelessly plagiarised from <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eDaSvRO9xA>

<comment><USER10> I've actually programmed an 8-bit processor in binary code by repeatedly flipping 8 metal toggles and pressing a "commit" button.

A roommate of mine in school actually TA'd a programming class where he saw some frustrated students take their IBM _punch card_ stack out of the reader, shuffle it, then put it back in.

<comment><USER12> 8 bits? You were lucky to have 8-bits. We never had 8-bits. We had to make do with t' abacus, and we never had any beads!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _How can you spot and truly understand memory leaks without having to manage memory allocation by yourself?_

My peers (students) and I have discussed this several times. It's a good example, and we use it to argue _for_ continuing to teach C to new CS students at our school.

(It often seems the CS department is trying to move in the Java + Python, and nothing else, direction)

</comment><comment><USER14> Another worthy pursuit: buy all of Brian Kernighan's books, not just The C Programming Language. It is well worth the pain of becoming slightly familiar with Fortran and Pascal to read these little gems.

Being familiar with how things work is undoubtedly useful, but I argue if you are an application developer, learning software construction is equally if not more important.

See also: Code Complete, Programming Pearls, and C interfaces and implementations.

<comment><USER15> I never knew Kernighan wrote a pascal book. (or a version of a book in pascal). Neat. Also ampl seems quire useful, I've written my own versions of some of that stuff in mathematica. It'd be great to have it already done for me.

<comment><USER14> Software Tools in Pascal. There was a previous version with examples written in something called Ratfor, which from what I've read is a hybrid of fortran and C. [http://www.amazon.com/Software-Tools-Pascal-Brian- Kernighan/...](http://www.amazon.com/Software-Tools-Pascal-Brian- Kernighan/dp/0201103427/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1298360333&sr=8-6)

<comment><USER16> Ratfor, if my memory serves me well, was a set of macros which sort of turned Fortran into a simplified C. Better read the Pascal book, the language (Pascal) would be easier to follow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I agree that it is good to be a "generalist" or a "full stack programmer". I try to be one myself.

Be careful when you hear these classifications coming from recruiters. Whenever I have heard "generalist" what was meant was "someone who can magically already do everything within our narrow domain of concerns."

</comment><comment><USER18> Not that long ago "old-school" meant assembly language. Knowing assembly language makes one a much better C programmer.

And we had to walk uphill to school both ways.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is the #2 reason I am sorry I didn't grow up during the 60's.

A competent programmer could known the whole stack, down to the micro- controller. (Mainly because there wasn't much stack there..)

* Free love&drugs is #1

<comment><USER20> Emulation programming is a good way to learn this stuff today. Just pick a platform, emulate it, and you're guaranteed to know the whole stack.

<comment><USER21> I'm having a lot of fun with this MSP430 microprocessor that cost $4.30, delivered to Australia(!). Great way to teach/refresh some skills in simple assembly or C.

Here's the original HN article where it was mentioned: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2202737>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I fully agree, but all it really says is, "learn how things _actually work_ , people!" This is still mostly fluff and identity politics, hoping people who _know_ they're old-school will upvote it. Flagged.

<comment><AUTHOR> No fluff intended. And no upvotes phishing - I don't write for upvotes. Been bothered by this, and hope to help someone understand this is important.

Good day!

<comment><USER3> I think posts like this mostly just encourage people to use the command line to feel "old-school", not because it _works_.

Kernighan and Pike's _The Practice of Programming_ covers similar material very well.

And yes, I was a bit overly critical. I'm annoyed by that style of article, not that specific one, sorry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think he's just saying develop better debugging skills, the stuff about the good old days is irrelevant.

<comment><USER10> My read is that the debugging skill is just one example of the benefits of background knowledge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Ironic - this newfangled wireshark seems more usable then the old-school tcpdump that I used to use.

<comment><USER24> I might be misremembering, but I think wireshark is/was a frontend for tcpdump.

<comment><USER25> No it's not. TCPdump and Wireshark both use libpcap, however.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Great article. This is why I use and love C++. It will be used for the next 50 years or longer. Learning it (or any other foundational, open source programming language) is a must.

</comment><comment><USER27> Baby, I played truant from hacking school.

</comment><comment><USER28> You also owe it to yourself to learn the newer techniques.

The article is true and useful and contains many good pointers, but my god is it annoying when you either misunderstand the concept or take it too far. This kind of rot sets in when you refuse to use a tool or technique for no good reason.

Maybe this is a function of age or, more precisely, maturity level: Young people use bad tools to be 'hardcore', old people use bad tools because they stop learning new ones. Either way, the image I immediately dredge up when someone says 'old-school' in this context is someone writing a program using a machine code debugger instead of getting a decent text editor and development tools. Unless you can actually tell the difference in the resulting output, and I guarantee you almost certainly can't when it's assembler vs debugger, use the best (most likely, newest) tools you can get.

(The above doesn't apply to people doing things a certain way for fun. Heck, I run obsolete OSes on emulated hardware for fun. I just don't confuse that with reality.)

</comment><comment><USER29> You got me at the House reference. Good one.</comment>


The Role of the Intrapreneur - <AUTHOR> http://nymediacenter.com/events/event/?id=5D05A8AD-016F-46A4-9B72AFE2F1A09660&slugid=conversations-on-entrepreneurial-change-the-conference-malmo

<comment><AUTHOR> I have never had my own startup company, but have considered myself an intrapreneur. I'm curious about this community's opinion on the concept and validity of an intrapreneur, and any examples of how an intrapreneur allowed for an entrepreneurial endeavor to gain resources from a larger business entity.

The Made in NY Media Center by IFP is hosting "Conversations on Entrepreneurial Change: The Conference (Malmo)" where Nicole Yershon, Director of Innovative Solutions at Ogilvy Labs, will discuss the role of the intrapreneur. Thought I'd get the conversation started here!

Although The Conference is in Sweden, the Made in NY Media Center by IFP is hosting Danya Cheskis-Gold, Director of Community for Spark Capital and last year's keynote. It's a free event, so I recommend coming!</comment>


Facebook's Crisis Management Algorithm Runs on Outrage - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2019-facebook-neverending-crisis/ <comment><USER2> From the article:

> Facebook would remove certain posts in some high-risk countries, including > Sri Lanka, but only if they were reported by local nonprofits and would lead > to "imminent violence."

Wow, way to exploit nonprofits to provide free content moderation for one of the most profitable corporations in the world.

</comment><comment><USER3> I finally see why Mark Zuckerberg is advocating AI. They are basically playing whack-a-mole because all they cared about was growing the user base without paying enough attention to how users were interacting on Facebook. All these algorithms were introduce to drive engagement which coincidentally meant showing more provocative statements. Now it's biting them in the rear. He thinks that machine learning will solve all his problems with the soup of hate speeches and misinformation. And that there is nothing wrong with the current business model of invading someone's privacy to earn advertising money. I fear it is nothing more than wishful thinking that it will solve all the underlying problems of Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER4> >"There are real concerns with a private company determining truth or falsity,"

I can think of several US news orgs who dabble in the truth business.</comment>


Unilever pauses Advertising on Facebook and Twitter till year end - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/26/unilever-pauses-facebook-and-twitter-advertising-for-rest-of-2020-due-to-polarized-atmosphere-in-us.html <comment><USER2> Given the levels of hubbub I'm seeing about Unilever getting off Facebook/Twitter for the year, this is striking me as an absolutely brilliant PR and marketing coup.

Before today I didn't know they were even a thing. Now I do. This is better than free advertising: they are getting headlines for NOT spending money.

I know you can't exactly plan this sort of thing, but Unilever's marketing department earned their pay this week.

</comment><comment><USER3> The only thing they make which I have bought in the last decade is Lipton tea, and I only bought that at a gas station because I didn't want an energy drink.

Apparently they make lots of soap.

</comment><comment><USER4> That just sounds like clever cost cutting frankly.</comment>


2MM websocket benchmark with Elixir and Phoenix - <AUTHOR> http://www.phoenixframework.org/blog/the-road-to-2-million-websocket-connections <comment><USER2> This is great! Lots of hard work from the Phoenix team and greatly appreciated for sure!</comment>


The Indie Web movement (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2013/08/indie-web/ <comment><USER2> The protocols that drive the Indie Web movement are actually open standards published by the W3C Social Web Working Group [1]. This year, some of these standards became W3C Recommendations. Webmentions is the successor to pingbacks and it can also be used for comments and replies in blog posts. IndieAuth is an authentication system based on OAuth that can be used for publishing content into your site using applications via Micropub. Microformats adds metadata to web documents so that applications can also scrap information from blog posts (in a similar fashion to OpenGraph).

One of the most interesting concepts about the Indie Web movement that I like is POSSE [2]: you should own your content, but it's OK to then syndicate your content into silos such as Twitter or Instagram as long as there are links that trace back to your site so that your site is always seen as the canonical place where your content lives.

[1]: [https://www.w3.org/Social/WG](https://www.w3.org/Social/WG) [2]: [https://indieweb.org/POSSE](https://indieweb.org/POSSE)

</comment><comment><USER3> The heroes the web needs. Really.

An example of the kinds of things the IndieWeb folks think about: POSSE, "Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere", where twitter and co are used as secondary platforms referring back to the non-silo-controlled site.

[https://indieweb.org/POSSE](https://indieweb.org/POSSE)

<comment> 52-6F-62 I hadn't heard of this before this thread.

This is actually almost tit-for-tat the MO of digital media corps publication and delivery roadmaps (well, the outward facing side). I've heard plenty of this in the media world, and no reference to the Indie Web group.

In hindsight the general design of said system is obvious, but I wonder if their plans originated with IW, or developed beside it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Indie Web movement is a very interesting one, I personally support some of their goals, however, the protocols they design seem a bit... too uncomplicated at times (Microformats2 is impossible to properly parse in JSON form and you need that for their Micropub protocol. And Micropub has a few stinks of it's own)

<comment><USER5> That makes no sense. Microformats 2 defines how to parse html into json form, and there are multiple implementations in different programming languages.

[http://microformats.org/wiki/microformats-2-parsing](http://microformats.org/wiki/microformats-2-parsing)

If you have problems with micropub, file issues with the spec.

[https://github.com/w3c/Micropub/issues](https://github.com/w3c/Micropub/issues)

<comment><USER4> When you write a Micropub implementation the primary spec involves an unholy JSON format.

About 80% of the code I wrote was just dedicated to finding out whether or not I'm updating an article, creating a new one, deleting the article entirely and which attributes need updating.

The JSON format has an immense amount of issues relating to irregularity, some fields have html and text sub-attributes but this doesn't seem documented properly anywhere, not even the MF2 page, everything is an array even where it makes 0 sense to do so and as an implementer I'm somehow expected to then process and store this mess as a coherent article.

Part of the spec validation involves storing a publication which contains almost no text and some user defined elements for some reason. And I'm expected to understand and properly update these custom elements if requested.</comment></comment></comment>


Solitude and Leadership - <AUTHOR> http://www.theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/ Why is it so often that the best people are stuck in the middle and the people who are running things—the leaders—are the mediocrities? Because excellence isn't usually what gets you up the greasy pole. What gets you up is a talent for maneuvering. Kissing up to the people above you, kicking down to the people below you. Pleasing your teachers, pleasing your superiors, picking a powerful mentor and riding his coattails until it's time to stab him in the back. Jumping through hoops. Getting along by going along. Being whatever other people want you to be, so that it finally comes to seem that, like the manager of the Central Station, you have nothing inside you at all. Not taking stupid risks like trying to change how things are done or question why they're done. Just keeping the routine going. <comment><USER2> This is one of the best lectures/essays I have ever read. Argues for better (moral) leadership in nearly all of society's institutions, and what is required for that, exposing, along the way, not only military bureaucracies and the kinds of people these attract, and much more.

</comment><comment><USER3> Some of the points about the military and bureacracy remind one of Tocqueville on the characteristics of peacetime militaries in a democratic state. Tocqueville could have learned it by reviewing the US performance in the War of 1812--start with a Hull and a Wilkinson, end with Jackson, Brown, Scott.

As for solitude & introspection, I don't know. These are not necessarily the qualities that make the warrior.

</comment><comment><USER4> Reading the entire article would be a good first step in practicing his ideas. :) Interesting read...</comment>


Jobs in the Progressive Movement - <AUTHOR> https://all-hands.us <comment><AUTHOR> Calling all tech, data, and paid media talent: we've got under 100 days to the election, and the progressive movement needs your help more than ever. Join All Hands to get matched up with a job at one of the most impactful organizations today (it's free!). We'll work to actively matchmake you to roles with our hiring partners and vouch for your experiences wherever we can. We've got over 40 hiring partners (including Color of Change, SEIU, Priorities USA, the DNC, Fair Count, Hustle & many more) and 300+ active roles. Apply here to join the talent pool >> [https://all-hands.us](https://all-hands.us)</comment>


Share HN: Google+ invitations for anyone interested - <AUTHOR>

Just in case you don't already have a friend on Google+ I'll be happy to extend you an invitation. Feel free to email or DM me on Twitter. <comment><USER2> Please consider making use of the HN circle and adding all of us listed in the post and comments on the following link <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2717503>

<comment><AUTHOR> Will do.

<comment><USER3> Thank You.</comment></comment></comment>


Object-oriented Design in Ruby/Rails - <AUTHOR> In a discussion about design and ruby/rails apps, a statement has been brought up as a counter argument against the use of trailblazer, DDD techniques and Rails (best/standard) practices to tame complexity. And that is that "[...] there are cases where 300+ lines of a Ruby class are the right thing". Just to be clear, these 300 lines are pure LoC, no comments or line breaks (I already subtracted those away).<p>I cannot believe that's even close to true, but nevertheless I would like to know the opinion of the Ruby/Rails community. Can you really think of such (valid) use cases and or did you even come across those (apart from anti-pattern use cases)? <comment><USER2> For most code, separation of concerns should mean 300 lines of code is spread across multiple files. But Ruby programming can still be fairly rote sometimes. Say there's some grammar parser which has 50 case statements. It might be easier on the eyes, but I don't think separating such code into multiple files is necessarily an "object oriented principle".</comment>


iTerm2 v3.0 Released - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/gnachman/status/737747033067376640 <comment><USER2> I was curious about the new features and the description on the core site was pretty helpful...possibly useful for others to save having to search:

[https://www.iterm2.com/version3.html](https://www.iterm2.com/version3.html)

<comment><USER3> The story should change to this URL.

</comment></comment><comment> nor-and-or-not I wish, I could take back my upvote, because it's just v3.0 BETA and not the final release.

<comment><USER4> If it's any consolation, this seems to be rolling out to everybody regardless. I'm pretty sure I'd never opt in to beta testing iTerm2, yet here I sit, having just gone through an automatic upgrade. Weird.

(See also [https://twitter.com/shitwhocares/status/737938380470816768](https://twitter.com/shitwhocares/status/737938380470816768) for somebody else who seems to be in the same boat)

<comment><USER5> Check the `Prompt for test-release updates' tickbox in Preferences, General.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> After updated to 3.0, iTerm2 automatically enable "thin stroke something" option that makea my font unreadable.

<comment><USER7> Same here -- reverting the font rendering was the first thing I did. Odd decision on the dev's part to make it the default. Really happy about all the other features, though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yeah, so that update didn't go well,

01/06/16 20:18:56,610 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.googlecode.iterm2.61472[2542]) Could not find and/or execute program specified by service: 2: No such file or directory: /Applications/iTerm.app/Contents/MacOS/iTerm 01/06/16 20:18:56,610 Dock[262]: spawn_via_launchd() failed, errno=111 label=com.googlecode.iterm2.61472 path=/Applications/iTerm.app/Contents/MacOS/iTerm flags=1 : LaunchApplicationClient.cp #1136 LaunchApplicationViaLaunchDJobLabel() q=com.apple.root.user-initiated-qos 01/06/16 20:18:56,610 Dock[262]: spawn_via_launchd() failed, errno=111 label=com.googlecode.iterm2.61472 path=/Applications/iTerm.app/Contents/MacOS/iTerm flags=1 01/06/16 20:18:56,610 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.googlecode.iterm2.61472[2542]) Service setup event to handle failure and will not launch until it fires.

</comment><comment><USER9> back when the only choice was terminal.app and iterm, iterm2 was a breath of fresh air. unfortunately, over the last 3 or so years, more and more features have been added that i will never use and the app has started to feel bloated. is there a minimalist alternative?

<comment><USER10> You should try MacTerm (macterm.net).

This is my project.

I think it avoids a "kitchen sink" feel, despite having lots of capabilities. I have tried to _enable_ a lot of things through macros, scripts and low-level preferences without necessarily dumping every possible customization option into the high-level interface. MacTerm does have advanced emulation like 24-bit color and XTerm sequences with sensible defaults.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> uhh, yeah... on a side note, i had a notice telling me to upgrade to 3.0.0 while its still in beta. installed and then it wouldn't open anymore so i downgraded back :P.

<comment><USER12> how do I downgrade back to 2.1.4? :(

<comment><USER11> oh, you can easily download it back from the site and replace it i believe. (that's what I did on mac os x at least)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Actually it's a beta version, it would be great to correct the misleading title.

</comment><comment><USER14> I updated the nightly to 3.0.something, but didn't see any visible changes. Although I have no idea what I have, that the stable versions don't.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm a long time Terminal.app user, and I don't understand why you need a different one. Can somebody help me understand what is the main feature of this iTerm2 that you can't live without? FWIW, I use urxvt under X11, and I'm happy with that too.

<comment><USER16> iTerm2 permits one to bind command-w to _nothing_ , which is fantastic if you are going really fast and you meant to do that to Chrome but your iTerm2 has focus. Also great for errant muscle memory when one means to press _control_ w

It remembers all the sessions that were open and the directory the shell was in when Yet Another Rebooting Update comes through. Obviously the local command history is lost, but even just restoring the tabs, putting back their titles and changing back to the right directory is a _monster_ time saver.

Being open source is a very real benefit in my life, even if I never change a thing, because I _can_ change a thing.

The colored tabs are also pretty.

<comment><USER3> > It remembers all the sessions that were open and the directory the shell was > in when Yet Another Rebooting Update comes through. Obviously the local > command history is lost, but even just restoring the tabs, putting back > their titles and changing back to the right directory is a monster time > saver.

I believe Terminal does this as well.

<comment><USER17> It restores the tabs, but it doesn't change directories.

<comment><USER3> Ah, noted. It does, however, keep the history for that tab, although it's greyed out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wanted proper full screen to work so I switched to ITerm at a friends reccomedation. I've never looked back. It's ust so flexible as well also with the different themes you can style it with

</comment><comment><USER19> No this is the real release. Beta came out in feb ([https://iterm2.com/news.html](https://iterm2.com/news.html))

</comment><comment><USER20> Is there any way to make is stay on top of other windows? Even if it loses focus I mean.

</comment><comment><USER21> Why is it not called iTerm3?

<comment><USER16> This discussion might interest you: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11130208](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11130208)</comment></comment>


Google reviewed pay equity and learned it was underpaying men - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/03/04/google-asked-about-pay-equity-learned-it-was-mostly-underpaying-men/ <comment><USER2> Previous discussion (>500 comments) here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19303039](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19303039)

</comment><comment><USER3> This does not tell the whole story - there is also a lawsuit against google for "under-leveling" women in engineering. This is when, at the same skill level, a hiring manager would perceive the woman as less competent and place her in a lower compensation band / level.

In fact, if under-leveling were true, you might see exactly this pay effect that google discovered! As more competent women are placed in lower levels, they are relatively better paid than men in the same level as they are more skilled. However overall the salary is less than would be if they had been in a lower range of the next level up.

I can't say what the truth is, but I think it's very sloppy journalism not to include that detail.

<comment><USER4> I didn't read this article because of a payway but I read the NYT article on it, and they covered that. Knowing the Post I can only assume they did too and you didn't read it either?

<comment><USER5> They did not from my reading.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Many people talking about the Gender Wage Gap fail to differentiate between Wages and Earnings. There is a earnings gap, but no wage gap.

<comment><USER7> Huh - what do you mean, I know one v UK big tech employer that had major gaps for Women , Disabled and LGBT staff.

<comment><USER8> Do you have any sources to back this up?

<comment><USER7> Yes direct from the results of the Surveys done :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> From March 4th. Please remove this.

<comment><USER10> Why?</comment></comment>


Changes to Zimbra's Open Source Policy - <AUTHOR> https://forums.zimbra.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=68073 <comment><USER2> Shame this didn't gain any traction on HN. This change of course is deeply troubling. Zimbra was pretty much the only solution for running your own mail server that didn't require significant technical knowledge or investment of time.</comment>


Idea Dating - <AUTHOR> http://rogsmith.com/idea-dating

<comment><USER2> I can relate pretty well to these idea stages. The first iteration of any idea is usually wrong or at the very least incomplete. The "Getting to know you" and "Friends and family" stage usually do a pretty good job of transforming the idea to something great or recognizing that it isn't a useful idea after all.</comment>


Intensive Decompression: Brain Reset by Sleeping in Nature - <AUTHOR> http://www.hackersguidetowork.com/intensive-decompression <comment><USER2> I remember with crystal clarity only a few moments in my life - almost all were outdoors - waking up in a hammock just as dawn cracked, floating in Windermere as dusk set in, amazing memories.

My children's births I also remember but the amazement and awe is overlaid with stress and worry - so yes, get outside if you want your heart to relax.

<comment><USER3> I've experienced this crystal clarity a few times in my life. Once, lying with my dog in the yard as a teenager, and another time driving over a hill and seeing a beautiful sunset. I experienced an almost overwhelming joy and love of life.

I am not a religious person but I think these are known as "Peak Experiences". [0]

I also experience "ASMR" [1] and maybe these things are related.

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_experience>

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_sensory_meridian_res...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_sensory_meridian_response)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the link to Peak Experience.

Two years ago I spent six months driving across the country, camping and hiking in national parks. I experienced several instances of what I described as "transcendent ecstasy", which sounds like a similar phenomenon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What I really appreciate about spending time in the wild – hiking for me – is how it allows me to step back from my everyday life. Go to some place, eat, sleep, that's not much but it fills your whole day and it's a very satisfying experience.

I kinda have this feeling that I always have to fight for happiness in the city whereas it comes naturally in the wild.

</comment><comment><USER6> Just watched this the other day on Netflix. <http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/happypeople/>

Takes you deep into Siberia to the winter campsites of trappers. Harsh life but very beautiful.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for this! Looks really good! Will watch it later :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> tl;dr: go camping once in awhile.

<comment><USER8> I see that you are getting downvoted, it may be beacuse you don't add to the discussion, but to be fair the article doesn't offer more than the above line.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right, there's nothing more to it. It's really simple :)

<comment><USER8> Maybe it sounded harsh, it's not, your sibling comment explains it better. I'm also (almost) in my 30s ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think it's harsh at all :) I'm too (well) on my 30s and I've been thinking about these things a lot. I'll write a blog post on the subject later, because simple vs complex solution thing intrigues me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I agree, but I think that there are different stressors in our lives. Work stress is hard to deal with, and I deal with it by sailing. However, there are stressors when sailing: the safety of the vessel, the safety of my crew, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> True and those stresses experienced while sailing are more true than the ones experienced at work. You don't stress about deadlines when you are in front of the bear :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm personally not into camping at all, but I think the point is to take some time to do something you love. I personally love to ski, but even a day alone playing video games can do the trick, it's more about getting away from work as completely as possible.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This was my little experiment to battle stress and pressure at work. How do you manage stress?

<comment><USER11> Get on a bicycle and just ride _somewhere_ (but nowhere in particular). Forces my mind out of deadline mode, since I can't know when I'll be back or when I'll get to where I'm going. Also, by removing myself from familiar surroundings, helps me forget things (like work) associated with them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Those are great tips!

I could see myself building a habit of wandering around unknown parts of the city.

<comment><USER12> Where do you live?

I can't do that. The 'unknown' parts of my city are unknown for a reason...

<comment><USER13> The danger you face on a bicycle is from motorized vehicles. You're not going to get mugged on a bike during the daytime unless you are very unwise. Ride a bike that isn't obviously valuable, don't wear fluorescent colors, don't stop to sightsee, don't stop for conversations, and don't expect your lock to help you if leave your bike unattended. In poor areas riding a bike is an indicator that you are poor or that you have lost your driver's license (which is another indicator that you are poor). As long as you don't contradict that impression you'll be fine.

For instance, when I lived near LA I would regularly bike all over, including through areas such as Compton.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There's been a lot of research in the past decade on the benefits of greenery: [http://www.gwern.net/The%20Melancholy%20of%20Subculture%20So...](http://www.gwern.net/The%20Melancholy%20of%20Subculture%20Society#fn28)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link! It sure looks like I need to read more on this subject

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> We didn't evolved to sit in an office 9-to-5.</comment>


Let a thousand Mules bloom - <AUTHOR> http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/12/17/let-a-thousand-mules-bloom <comment><USER2> I like the sentiment of the article. Disruption is good for our society, but at this point I'm not sure anything is going to be enough to save us from ourselves, short of a technological elimination of energy scarcity.</comment>


The 500 mile email - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wordtothewise.com/2012/04/the-500-mile-email/

<comment><USER2> duplicate - multiple times [http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=%22...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=%22500+mile+email%22&start=0)

</comment><comment><USER3> Cmon, this story is almost 20 years old.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yikes, my bad. Friend forwarded havent seen it before and it popped up on G+ today, my fault.</comment></comment>


"Value", the irksome euphemism - guard-of-terra http://www.yosefk.com/blog/value-the-irksome-euphemism.html

<comment> guard-of-terra I was blown away by this:

 _A particularly inflexible conscience is a horrible condition. Feet to which no mass-produced shoes fit are merely inconvenient. A conscience incompatible with mass-produced social arrangements is a huge burden - not just on its owner, but on his friends and family._</comment>


HTC and Apple Settle Patent Dispute - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2012/11/11HTC-and-Apple-Settle-Patent-Dispute.html

<comment><USER2> Probably the situation with HTC's LTE patents which got Apple on the ropes: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-06/htc-patents- challen...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-06/htc-patents-challenged- by-apple-probably-valid-judge-say.html)

Plus HTC's downward trend recently probably made the cross-license more palatable.

</comment><comment><USER3> Perhaps its the beginning of the end of all the litigation. It puts HTC in a useful position (although how useful that position is can't be ascertained without knowing how much they are paying everyone per handset)</comment>


French comedian Dieudonné arrested for Facebook post - <AUTHOR> http://www.thejournal.ie/dieudonne-arrest-1880765-Jan2015/?utm_source=shortlink <comment><USER2> Smart move, now he's going to get free publicity as a free speech advocate.

When someone says something hateful, it's more effective to ignore him than to make a nation-wide scandal about it.

Seriously, the guy strives on all the scandals around him, the more you beat on him the more popular he gets, why not trying another tactic for a change?

But of course, it's hard for politicians to resist the temptation of playing tough on TV news.</comment>


Ask HN: Good JavaScript WYSIWYG Editor? - <AUTHOR>

I am looking for a replacement for the Yahoo UI rich-text editor. Unfortunately I found it to be quite buggy...
So far I have tried TinyMCE, nicEdit, FCKEditor and CKEditor. I haven't been happy with any of them.
I am looking for something that looks modern, is simple to implement (like nicEdit) and is customizable. The editor is being used in a CMS built in Rails. I need to be able to change the 'insert image' and 'insert file' buttons in the editor so that they call the CMS's built in image and file browsers.
All help appreciated! <comment><AUTHOR> Links to the editors I have already tried:

<http://ckeditor.com/demo> _(a little slow in FF, seems a little hokey in general)_

<http://www.fckeditor.net/demo> _(crashes FF3 with it's slowness!)_

<http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/examples/full.php> _(really slow to load in all browsers)_

<http://nicedit.com/demos.php> _(I liked this the most out of the alternatives so far, it's fast and lightweight but the HTML editor is not full-size and it's image properties box kind of misses the mark for my use)_

[http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examples/editor/code_editor.h...](http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examples/editor/code_editor.html) _(I had numerous problems with the editor's Image properties box disappearing and taking images with it, also setting up the editor to allow editing of raw HTML never really worked that well)_

</comment><comment><USER2> Tried WysiHat?

<http://github.com/37signals/wysihat/>

<comment><AUTHOR> No I hadn't! Thanks!

I'm looking for something that comes a little more ready-to-roll unfortunately... I need to get a new editor in by tomorrow and I don't really have the time to setup something like this...

It sounds very similar overall to the YUI text editors...

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It seems that after all that I will be going back to they YUI rich text editor. It's better than any of the alternatives that I have tried, and far more customizable.

If only I could get the disappearing image bug solved...</comment>


Voyurl watches your web browsing to create custom infographics - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1769431/voyurl-watches-your-web-browsing-to-create-custom-infographics <comment><USER2> www.voyurl.com/welovehn for private beta access</comment>


Fresh Food Delivery Service Launched - <AUTHOR> http://www.simplyfresh.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a collaboration between NutriSystem and the startup I'm contracting with, FreshRealm ([http://www.freshRealm.co](http://www.freshRealm.co)), that is launching today.

FreshRealm has some pretty amazing tech in the logistics chain and in their patented shipping vessel. They're currently only in Southern California, but of course plan on expanding to be nationwide. Feel free to ask any questions, I can pass them on to the folks here!

</comment><comment><USER2> The service looks interesting, although I can't comment on it as it isn't available in my area.

I did, however, want to say the the trend of fixed menu bars on web pages should be carefully considered before you choose to implement it. On my screen the fixed bar takes up roughly 1/4 of the available vertical space (safari on a 15-in MBP). This makes reading and scrolling feel unnatural, as it's difficult to contain some of the longer sections in a single screen.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's good feedback. I'll pass it along. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Show HN: I want to intern at Airbnb so I made this - <AUTHOR> http://Kathylovesairbnb.kythe.co

<comment><USER2> I scrolled through it and would offer the following comments:

As someone who doesn't know you and doesn't place a whole lot of value in self-judgments (in the abstract), I was far more interested in your portfolio and resume than I was in the 10-item "Why me?" list. However, having to click to go somewhere else to see your portfolio was off-putting -- that's the only thing that's not in-line. I think it would be more powerful if your portfolio (or selected great bits) were visible right then and there.

Additionally, I think that 10 things for "why me" made the list a bit long. A lot of them could be shown (rather than told) elsewhere in your presentation, especially through your portfolio.</comment>


Ask HN: Review my idea - Hosting SEO - <AUTHOR>

Background: This idea was borne out of an internal tool I created to figure out and validate SEO strategies for websites I own. I figure since it works for me, I could try and sell this to a different industry/niche - in this case 'hosting'. This tool currently does not have an UI - I run sql queries directly on the mysql server to get my information. I have created a mockup UI to show how I expect it to work.
UI for explaining the app functionality - http://axemantech.com/HostingSEO/
Pain point it solves: Currently there are many seo apps that show serp rankings, on page and off page seo stats but seting up the system is generally painful. I dislike having to add keywords for my website, add data for my competitors, etc. This generally happens because these SEO apps are generic.
How to solve this: Since this app focuses on a specific niche, it will already be setup with all the potential keywords for the niche (and will continously add new ones). All the data that the customers (people performing seo for hosting companies) want would already be in the system. A customer would only sign up with his domain(s) and the app would show him his serp rankings, onpage and offpage details about the SEO for his web pages and his competitors.
The reason I chose the 'hosting' industry is because its one of the industries with the costliest adwords cpc - which means that a small change in ranking could be potentially very large savings for the companies. I am however open to other niches (especially ones that are not saturated)
I have been a technical guy for 10 years and find it quite hard to change my mindset to that of a business guy. All my questions are related to the business side.
My questions:
1. Does this sound like a good idea?
2. How else can I add value by specializing for a niche industry?
3. How would one figure out the best industry for this?
4. How would one figure out the market size for a specific industry?
5. What's the best way to get the initial users to help build this? I was thinking of contacting people who work at hosting companies via LinkedIn and try to sell to them directly.
Thank you so much for your time HN. You rock.
Akash <comment><USER2> Interesting. I'm myself a software developer with a strong interest in SEO, so I know what you're talking about :-) I thought hard about breaking into the SEO tools world but I've discarded it so far for being too competitive.

To answer your questions:

1- I'm not sure. The best is to ask your prospective customers.

2- That's a good question. Can you make something better than SEOMoz by specializing? Your initial Unique Value Proposition is that it's easier because the domain and keywords are known. However I don't see that as being much work. Can you quantify that?

3- I think your initial reasoning for choosing the industry is right.

4- no idea. Google searches, reviews sites would only cover a small part of all hosting companies.

5- Contact people directly from LinkedIn or from contact forms on their websites. Try to get smaller hosting companies first (for e.g local hosting companies in your area).

In the end, I'm not really sure about the value of what you're offering. If you could service one niche, you could trivially expand (it's just a matter of entering keywords). So your product needs to have some more niche relevance. Maybe a list of link building tips, bloggers to reach out to do guest blogging, industry-specific opportunities etc.

If you want to brainstorm this more, I'd be glad to help. My email address is in my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Tommy,

Thanks for the answers. I'm definitely interested in brainstorming. Will send you an email in a while.

Akash

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I dont think doing seo for a single industry is a good idea. Actually I think it's terrible.

Seo is a competition. You cant be serving both me and my competitor. Whose website do you promise to.get better ranking to? Who pays you the most? I'd rather just pays adwords then.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not thinking of providing direct SEO services to the companies in the same industry. The app would simply allow them to check and validate their seo strategies and see comparable data for all the other companies in the same industry (on-page and off-page seo stats, back links etc).

At the moment, I'm not confident that there is any niche-specific value the app can provide to the companies. However, assuming I can figure that out, would a company really be put off if their competitor was able to access the same value?

<comment><USER4> It sounds like you're trying to build <http://mixrank.com> for SEO. SEO is tough cause the results aren't immediate. Also, as a business person, most would rather pay for results (black or white hat) than a bunch of information that they may not be able to act on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is a good idea to start with, but needs a lot of work on top of it to make it usable. Pick a relatively lesser dense industry to start with.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable - UI - <http://axemantech.com/HostingSEO/></comment>


In a Newly Bipolar World, Europe Is Caught in the Middle - <AUTHOR> https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/europe-caught-in-tensions-between-china-and-u-s-a-1273640.html <comment><USER2> It would be a hell of a lot less confusing if it were actually bipolar. With the ongoing collapse of American hegemony, pretty much everyone is on their own now.

<comment><USER3> American hegemony is pretty the same state that the British empire after Booer wars. Empire is definitely the most powerful nation in the world but it is fastly losing its momentum, it has some domestic policy problems and it is not invisible anymore.

<comment><USER4> The US won't enter first amongst equals til it's GDP per capita equals that of other developed western nations, their high GDP with a large population means they already punch way above their weight economically and militarily.

The British Empire was different, we owned a lot of territory but we didn't have a military build up like the US (adjusting for time period).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Its interesting when you read any science fiction or watch movies and TV e.g. Firefly, Blade Runner, Altered Carbon, Fifth Element etc.

In all of those there is this common theme of a major melding of Western and Chinese culture.

Will life imitate art in this case?

<comment><USER6> Perhaps. But in the 80's many thought that Japan would overtake the US so that dominated sci-fi and popular fiction. (see the cyberpunk tropes of Zaibatsus etc.)

Didn't turn out that way though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Where's Russia in this mix? Russia has been meddling with European affairs for hundreds of years.

The world is definitely not bipolar, US's hegemony after the collapse of the USSR is quickly disappearing. China is the latest player to enter the game, but it's true that Europe is between the hammer and anvil and battered on all sides by the US, Russia and China.

<comment><USER8> > Russia has been meddling with European affairs for hundreds of years.

This again?

That's akin to complaining that New York has been meddling in North American affairs for hundreds of years. Please _please_ remember that Russia is a transcontinental country, a _significant_ part of Russia _is_ distinctly European.

"European Russia is the western part of the Russian Federation, which is part of Eastern Europe. With a population of 110 million people, European Russia has about 77% of Russia's population, but covers less than 25% of Russia's territory. European Russia includes Moscow and Saint Petersburg, the two largest cities in Russia."†

The distance from Helsinki in Finland to St. Petersburg is a mere 400km! The thing is, Russia is so large it is part of Europe but also borders China.

Think about Russian culture for a second: ballet, classical music, Russian literature, a Latin-like alphabet (more recognisable than the Greek alphabet when you think about it), architecture – all recognisably European. Does it need to be pointed out that "Europe" has attacked Russia many times (the Napoleonic wars, the Wehrmacht) and that Russia was on the Allied side of WWII, the last hot war fought between great powers.

Russia has been demonised for too long for choosing the wrong ideology (communism) and becoming the sole 20th century political/economic/nuclear rival to the USA under the guise of the Soviet Union. I recommend the biopic _Meeting Gorbachev_ by Werner Herzog for a perspective on the collapse of the Soviet Union by the person at its helm at the time‡. If you still think "evil empire" after watching it then I don't know what to say.

If by European you mean _Western_ European please use that qualification.

All of Europe including Russia (but also India and others) are watching with trepidation as this geopolitical struggle between the US and China plays out.

† [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Russia)

‡ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meeting_Gorbachev](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meeting_Gorbachev)

edit: add religion to the common heritage as well

<comment><USER7> I was born and raised in a country that was behind the Iron Curtain so please don't lecture me on the history. Russia has a lot to answer for even if we disregard communism entirely.

Russia culturally and historically IS part of Europe, but that's where the similarities end. They're not part of European society and are most definitely an enemy to it.

<comment><USER8> I'm very sorry for whatever you endured behind the Iron Curtain but I'm from Europe too and you don't get draw arbitrary lines between peoples. You can't really say that Russia is culturally and historically part of Europe but then with the next breath deny that they are part of European society.

Russia is not an enemy of Europe, looks like Russia is returning to the Council of Europe: [https://www.ft.com/content/dee5c792-9731-11e9-8cfb-30c211dcd...](https://www.ft.com/content/dee5c792-9731-11e9-8cfb-30c211dcd229) – It'd be a strange thing for a non-European country to be part of the Council of Europe.

I am not saying that there isn't a deep mistrust there and undeniably there is much friction and animosity. But Germany would hardly decide to construct an essential energy pipeline with an enemy, would it? In your mind you see Russia as an enemy of Europe but many people in Europe do not see Russia that way. Which group is correct? Maybe life isn't black and white and the truth is somewhere in the middle? There's a difference between being a geopolitical rival and an outright enemy.

It troubles me deeply that there is so much hostile speech on HackerNews for our brothers and sisters in Russia and China.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The One Weird Trait That Predicts Whether You're a Trump Supporter - <AUTHOR> http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-authoritarian-213533?cmpid=sf <comment><USER2> See also the "strict father model" vs "nurturant parent model" of the state as explained by George Lakoff in his books going back to 1996.

</comment><comment><USER3> So, how come a lot of the media aren't rushing to support him? They've already got the authoritarian tendencies down...

Oh, because it's not just about whether someone is authoritarian, it's about whether they're authoritarian with a right wing slant to their political views. Either way, it's not particularly surprising, and neither is the mentioned possibility of someone like Trump actually getting the presidency. Bad economic times plus a government not interested in the population and a feeling that some 'other' group is destroying society tend to bring about authoritarian regimes.

<comment><USER4> > Milton Rokeach's dogmatism scale was an early attempt to measure pure > authoritarianism, whether left or right. The scale was carefully designed to > measure closed-mindedness without regard to ideology. Nevertheless, > researchers found that it correlated with British political conservativism. > In a similar line of research, Philip Tetlock found that right wing beliefs > are associated with less integrative complexity than left wing beliefs. > People with moderate liberal attitudes had the highest integrative > complexity in their cognitions.

> There have been a number of other attempts to identify "left-wing > authoritarians" in the United States and Canada. These would be people who > submit to leftist authorities, are highly conventional to liberal > viewpoints, and are aggressive to people who oppose left-wing ideology. > These attempts have failed because measures of authoritarianism always > correlate at least slightly with the right. However, left-wing > authoritarians were found in Eastern Europe. There are certainly extremists > across the political spectrum, but most psychologists now believe that > authoritarianism is a predominantly right-wing phenomenon. [1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right- wing_authoritarianism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right- wing_authoritarianism)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Meanwhile it really is a change that this guy wins isn't it?

I really don't get you america, never will. Its like a bad movie.</comment>


Doxing the person who stopped WannaCry was irresponsible and dumb - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/insider/2017/05/15/doxing-hero-stopped-wannacry-irresponsible-dumb/#.tnw_qBi4h8LQ <comment><USER2> Previous: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14340905](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14340905)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's 2017, dont't expect tabloid "journalists" to have integrity. Gotta drive thoses clicks.

<comment><USER4> For more than a decade I've refused to read the newspaper or their web equivalent and haven't watched an once of TV news. I usually just get wind of the big lines via reddit or hackernews, and almost never read the article but read the comments instead.

I honestly do not know if this is a good way to get my news, but at least I'm not getting depressed daily, or being lied to by one journalist. I only get the important information, and I get to see different educated and community- sorted points of view on the subject.

<comment><USER5> I do this a lot too, but I noticed that often comments (on reddit especially) get it wrong a lot of the time too.

I used to go straight to the comments, and there would always be some highly up-voted post countering the article, by someone claiming to work/have knowledge of the field, and I would usually believe that more then the article.

However then when a topic comes round which I do have actual knowledge on, I notice that often the article gets it wrong, and the counter-comments get it equally wrong.

Nowadays I try to make myself read the article before going to the comments, and take the counter-points also with a huge grain of salt. I only have opinions in topics I directly work in, the rest of the world is too complicated.

<comment><USER4> > I only have opinions in topics I directly work in, the rest of the world is > too complicated.

And there as well, knowledgeable people don't always agree on things :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> He talks about the effects of being doxxed by British media here: [https://twitter.com/MalwareTechBlog/status/86593783564328550...](https://twitter.com/MalwareTechBlog/status/865937835643285506)

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder how they doxed him in the first place. MT clearly knows what he's doing, and probably had a reasonably anonymous online footprint.

<comment><USER8> Sounded like there was a photo of him with a real-life friend, and the press went through his twitter friends and found that person. That person was less careful, and then hounded that person in real life... until they found the person they really wanted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Maybe someone should dig up personal information about these journalists...

</comment><comment><USER10> Here's to hoping he takes them to court in a way where he can prove damages.

<comment><USER11> Well, he's not American, so don't count on it.</comment></comment>


When Math Gets Impossibly Hard - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/when-math-gets-impossibly-hard-20200914/ <comment><USER2> I know a military contractor working on some pretty cool stuff, especially back in the day. On one of their projects they had to solve some really gnarly partial differential equation and weren't really getting anywhere. Since what they actually wanted were values (not the algebraic solution) what they ended up doing is building the equivalent circuit and measured what the voltage and current was in the circuit to get the values that they needed for some completely different domain.

I always thought that that way of thinking was pretty neat. Can the same abstraction have a different physical manifestation that's cheap to create? If you kinda squint a bit, it's what we do with computers.

<comment><USER3> Banks do that all the time with monte carlo simulation. Can't get a closed form solution? Simulate every possible outcome and aggregate them.

<comment><USER4> This is neither how a Monte-Carlo process works (it's sampling the possible outcomes randomly, not simulating all outcomes), nor what is described here (building a physical system where an observable value is described by the differential equation one is trying to solve).

<comment><USER3> In practice the number of simulated scenarii is quite large which is what I meant by "every". Not rigorous though, I concur.

Monte Carlo methods are used to solve partial differential equations, I found both approaches similar in the sense that they look at how the system actually/could behave, instead of looking at the equations solely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This might be incredibly pedantic, but since this is a mathematical philosophy article, I'm going to go ahead.

These aren't "hard" problems, they're simply questions that don't make sense. Is finding an odd number that is divisible by 2 a "hard problem"? I don't think so, it's just that it turns out that it doesn't make sense to ask the question.

Some of these "hard problems" actually have solutions that demonstrate they aren't solvable, and these solutions are fairly elegant, in which case I'd also say these are not "hard".

<comment><USER6> I think that's the joke of the title, though; perhaps rephrased slightly: "no matter how hard you try, this mathematical problem cannot actually be solved (and we can prove it, too)."

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> One interesting way of detecting gerrymandering that has been used in court [0] is to do a random walk on the graph of districting plans, where two plans have an edge between them if you can flip a precinct (the basic building block of a districting plan) in one plan to get the other plan.

By randomly walking this graph, starting from the current plan and randomly flipping precincts, you can build a distribution of how compact the plans you saw were (there are some measures of compactness defined in TFA and the document linked below), and identify outliers, which are likely to be gerrymandered.

[0] [https://sites.tufts.edu/vrdi/files/2018/06/md- report.pdf](https://sites.tufts.edu/vrdi/files/2018/06/md-report.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER8> The solution to gerrymandering is probably social, not mathematical, because the goals we want to pursue in district-drawing aren't strictly mathematical.

<comment><USER9> It bothers me that two arguments are commonly advanced for the idea that gerrymandering is a menace:

1\. It lets politicians create districts that will vote for them no matter what.

2\. It lets politicians waste opposition votes by putting them into districts that will, overall, just barely vote the other way.

The problem is that these two visions of "the problem" directly oppose each other. #1 says that the problem is districts that vote an 80/20 split. #2 says the problem is districts that vote a 51/49 split.

<comment><USER10> The core problem is the ability to leverage approximately 50% of votes into winning far more than 50% of seats.

<comment> dane-pgp Which suggests that a simplistic "solution" to gerrymandering is that, after the total vote share of the best-performing party is calculated (call it V%), and their share of seats is also calculated (S%), the second-best-performing party should be able to propose a change in district winners that reduces the gap between V% and S%. (And so on for the other parties competing).

Of course that would be outrageously unfair, with politicians choosing which districts they win rather than voters choosing the politicians to represent them, and yet that is somehow an improvement over the current system of gerrymandering.

A slightly less extreme option would be for the districts that get flipped to be decided by where a given party came closest to winning (the "best near- winner" system used in Baden-Württemberg), but really the aim of this system is to remove all incentive to gerrymander in the first place, so this result flipping rule would never have to be applied.

<comment><USER11> This is how the German system works. Not unfair at all. You cast two votes: one for a person, one for a party. At the end of the day the party percentages have to roughly line up (with a minimum percent for any representative at all.) This system has some very nice balancing properties in that you can vote for the person you want to represent you in the present race as well as the party you most strongly identify with.

<comment> dane-pgp My understanding is that the German system is Mixed-Member Proportional Representation (MMP) [0] which usually involves having a list of top-up candidates who don't belong to any specific district. The Baden-Württemberg system is a clever way around this, although it does lead to some districts being represented by multiple representatives.

Having more representatives than districts seems like it would be an overly- ambitious cultural shift in the US, whereas my proposal keeps the familiar 1:1 correspondence, even if there is gerrymandering. It also doesn't change the ballot papers or counting process; and, if gerrymandering is successfully disincentivised, the process works exactly the same as under the existing system.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed- member_proportional_repr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed- member_proportional_representation)

<comment><USER11> yes, i dont believe i contradicted anything there, but you are right i didnt tell the whole story and thank you for spelling out some of the details. more representatives than districts would be a shift and i agree this may be a harder pill to swallow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >Many states require that districts be "compact," a term with no fixed mathematical definition.

Every open cover has a finite subcover.

<comment><USER13> Logged in just to upvote this. I shudder to think what happens in those other states!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've always found the perimeter over area close to the mark for jerrymandering but not quite good enough (because of the coastline paradox - forces picking an arbitrary segment size [1]).

My idea - I welcome counter arguments - is to calculate the district's center of mass and find the furthest point the district still contains from that center of mass. Then create a circle with that distance as the radius and find the percentage of _land_ (maybe even privately owned land?) within that circle that is in the district. My view is that the percentage should be something like 50% (maybe higher? Hard to say without actually designing districts and checking the numbers).

50% would mean that half of the habitable land remaining in the circle could be a different district but no more.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox)

<comment><USER15> What about perimeter vs area but let coastlines be counted as straight lines?

<comment><USER14> The coastline paradox extends to much more than coastlines - pretty much all natural boundaries I would think. It's certainly doable, it just seems to add extra variables to what really needs to be as foolproof as possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Nitpick: the bridge problem is impossible because there aren't 2 or 0 nodes of odd degree.

If you have 2 islands with three bridges connecting them, you could just walk them trivially, yet there are an uneven number of connections on each node.

<comment><USER17> I may be misremembering my graph theory class, but isn't the necessary and sufficient conditions for an eulerian path just that every vertex needs to have even degree?

I'm not sure how it could work if any nodes had odd degree.

<comment><USER18> For an Eulerian circuit, you need the graph to be connected and for every node to have even degree. For an Eulerian path (which doesn't have to start and end at the same point) you may also allow two vertices to have odd degree.

<comment><USER17> Got it, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Math is hard for me because once a step of a proof is lost on me, the whole thing is lost unless I branch out into a rabbit hole, and learn what just happened

<comment><USER12> ok, but all of those rabbit holes have bottoms. It just may be that the space in between represents a year or more of learning.

<comment> iso8859-1 They don't have bottoms, because at the bottom you have logical assumptions like e.g. classical logic. These only exist because of history, only because it was the easiest way for someone to say something "insightful". Going down the rabbit hole, you have to choose some arbitrary point to stop at; it would be a point at which you think that you can apply the knowledge you have gained so far, in a way that other people will "appreciate".

Or you can just not stop, and try to go even deeper. But then you stop being a mathematician, and you turn into a madman, a philosopher or a theologist.

<comment><USER20> The "rabbit hole" being discussed is just "understanding a step in an argument", not, providing a foundation for logic.

It's not impossible to gain understanding of a step in someone else's argument.</comment></comment></comment></comment>